


His Name

by SaadieStuff



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Air Force, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Jesse Manes is the worst, M/M, Original Character Death(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-28 08:45:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19808800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaadieStuff/pseuds/SaadieStuff
Summary: Alex is grieving, and he wants the comfort of the one person he thinks he cannot have. But things have changed....it’s only so long that Alex can distract himself with the thrill and terror of being this close to Michael again, breathing him in, melting into him, before Michael holding him is just license to cry himself out...





	His Name

**Author's Note:**

> **Mind the tags!**
> 
> For the anonymous prompt I received on [tumblr](https://saadiestuff.tumblr.com) (literally months ago aahhh):  
>  _Malex "It scares me to think what might've happened to me if I'd gone to war and didn't have you to come home to. Maria would've been fine without me, my dad... and Liz had long since forgotten about me for the time being. But you. Oh you. I couldn't let you go through that."_
> 
> Thanks to [estel_willow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/estel_willow/profile) for naming the red shirt who ended up stealing my heart.

Michael knocks, and knocks, but Alex doesn’t answer. He tries phoning, again, before finally resorting to unlocking the door with his powers. He prays that there is no alarm - though he expects it of Alex - it's a risk he'll take.

The door swings open, and Michael steps inside the cabin for the first time. No alarm rings, but he makes note of an alarm panel on the wall. He immediately calls out for Alex, identifying himself.

“Alex! You here? It’s me, it’s Michael. I got your texts… Hello?”

Receiving no response, he starts to make his way through the cabin, poking his head in every room, searching for Alex, announcing his presence every so often - Alex is not someone he wants to sneak up on.

He finds Alex in his bedroom, fully clothed on top of the blankets, but head under the pillow, harsh light streaming in from poorly drawn blinds.

When Michael stops in the doorway, Alex lifts the pillow up and cracks his eyes open.

“What are you doing here?” he asks groggily.

“I saw your texts when I woke up this morning. I was worried when you didn’t answer,” Michael explains.

“Texts?”

“Drunk texts, then?” Michael suggests, recalling the numerous empty alcohol bottles he'd seen in the kitchen a minute earlier.

“Fuck,” Alex groans, “What did they say?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Michael says warmly. He'd sent Alex worse when he was spiraling after Max and Caulfield, and Alex had showed up every time.

With another groan, Alex puts his head firmly back under the pillow.

“Can I get you some aspirin for that hangover?” Michael offers.

Alex mumbles something inaudible, which Michael takes as a permission to go rifle through the bathroom cabinets.

Michael returns with a glass of water and an aspirin and sets it on the nightstand. He also closes Alex’s blinds with a flick of his fingers, then sits on the bed when Alex doesn’t move.

“Do you want me to kick your ass out of bed, or were you looking for something gentler?” Michael teases playfully, but they both know it’s a real question - one Alex had posed to Michael on several occasions some months ago. 

Alex gives no response.

“Come on," Michael coaxes, "at least sit up to take this aspirin."

Alex grunts in surprised discomfort as he finally makes to move. Michael realizes he’s gone to sleep with his prosthetic on, something Michael knows Alex is usually careful not to do.

Alex ignores it for the time being and pulls himself into a sitting position. Michael hands him the aspirin and water, which Alex takes, then lets his head fall back to bang lightly against the headboard.

“I need to take it off," Alex says, gingerly extending his leg.

“Okay,” Michael nods.

Alex starts undoing his jeans, then lifts his hips to slide them off to his knees, before Michael silently takes over to help pull them the rest of the way off. He wonders if he’s over-stepped for the way Alex freezes when his fingers brush his leg. 

“Sorry--”

“No, it’s-- I could use the help,” Alex admits shyly. 

Michael flashes a concerned smile at him, but knows better than to make a big deal of Alex’s show of vulnerability. “This button, right?” Michael says, his finger hovering over the prosthetic ankle.

“Yup," Alex nods.

Michael presses it and the pin releases, allowing Alex to then roll down the sleeve and free his leg. Michael takes the prosthetic and places it at the end of the bed, turning back around just in time to see Alex grimacing as he bends his knee to stretch.

“Can I be of assistance?” Michael asks. 

"Sure… um, put your hands on--"

Michael is already ahead of him, placing his hands at the end of Alex’s leg.

"Yeah," Alex rasps out.

Alex means to direct Michael to help him stretch, but the way that Michael's fingers have started to knead into his flesh feels so good, the words he wants to say stick in his throat, and he closes his eyes.

Long moments later, Michael looks up from concentrating on Alex's leg to see tears streaming down Alex’s face.

“Shit, that bad?” Michael asks with concern as he eases his grip, "Am I hurting you?"

Alex shakes his head. “It’s not really sore there… It's more my knee and hip… stiff from being angled weird all night. The aspirin will help,” he explains with a shaky voice as he wipes away his tears on the back of his hand, squirming under Michael's worried gaze.

Michael cocks his head, pausing for a moment before crawling back up the bed to sit next to Alex. He knows there's a lot more to it than the leg.

"So, you gonna tell me why you got hammered last night? That’s really more my style,” Michael prods. 

"My texts didn’t say?" Alex asks, marshalling his voice.

"Nope."

Alex wishes they had, so he wouldn't have to say it and make it real. He clutches a pillow to his chest and takes a breath.

“My friend died," Alex says flatly.

“What?” Michael says softly, eyes going a little wide.

The words rush out. “Yesterday, his unit-- well, I can’t really--” Alex halts abruptly, hanging his head and sighing.

“You worked with him?” Michael asks gently.

Alex nods, “Not recently. I only did my first tour with him. But he… became the person I was the closest to in the force-- in my life-- in those early years at least.”

“Alex… I’m so sorry,” Michael says, feeling incredibly helpless. He remembers how he felt when Max died. He wants to reach out, but he waits. 

Alex sniffs, blinking more tears out, and runs a hand through his wild hair. “We kept in touch pretty well through my second tour. It was harder on my third, with our jobs… We tried, but… ” he shakes his head, “But the thought that he’s not out there anymore…” he trails off.

“Hey, you don’t have to justify any of what you’re feeling.”

Alex seems to silently accept this. “I should get up,” he says, but he makes no move to do so. He feels achy and lethargic and just plain sad.

“If you’re not feeling up to being a productive member of society today, it’s okay.”

Alex looks at him with big, sad eyes, and Michael can’t resist reaching his hand out and brushing a tear away with his thumb before walking his fingers over the back of Alex’s neck to draw him in. Alex rolls into him, and they hug awkwardly for the position they’re in. Alex snuggles in and Michael holds him tight and rubs his back and doesn’t say anything because all he can think to say are silly lies. 

They stay like that for a while, but it’s only so long that Alex can distract himself with the thrill and terror of being this close to Michael again, breathing him in, melting into him, before Michael holding him is just license to cry himself out. And if he does that, he won’t have the energy for anything else - he’ll just have to lie there and _think_.

Alex peels away from his position scrunched into Michael, but he doesn’t go far, shifting a little before surging to kiss him.

They kiss once more, maybe twice, before Alex is moving to straddle Michael’s hips, lowering himself close enough that Michael's belt digs into the inside of Alex's bare thighs. 

Suddenly finding himself with a lap full of Alex, Michael’s hands almost on instinct find their way under Alex’s shirt to rest on his hips.

Alex keeps kissing him, only stopping to pull his own shirt off over his head, but Michael pulls away when he tries to find his lips again.

“Wait-- wait--” Michael rasps out.

" _Please_ ,” Alex pleads. He craves Michael’s comfort, and this is how they give it to one another. There’s no other way - or, at least, no other way Alex knows how to ask for in their silent language. 

“If this is just because you want to think about something else…” Michael starts slowly, “I know you obliged me a number of times not all that long ago, but…”

Alex recoils _fast_ , scrambling to get off him.

“Whoa, whoa,” Michael urges, keeping a hold of Alex’s hips, slowing him so he doesn’t topple them both.

Alex twists away. “You don’t owe me comfort sex, Guerin,” he snaps as he flops on the bed next to Michael. Alex feels a little embarrassed, reaching for his discarded shirt so he doesn’t feel so raw and exposed. 

“I know,” Michael says calmly, “But we can, if you want.” It’s not like Michael doesn’t want it for himself. It’s been months now that’s he’s been back on his feet, and they haven’t laid together in that time; he misses the feeling of Alex skin against his. “I just don't think it's fair if I don't tell you first-- If I don’t tell you… that I want it to mean something.”

Alex sits up slowly, confusion, and a spark of hope, flickering across his face. 

“What? I thought-- I thought loving me hurt too much,” Alex says, the words feeling like gravel in his throat. 

Michael sighs. He’d said those words, and they were still true, but he could see a future beyond them now. "It's hard for me to accept that you want me - really want me. And that's not all on you. ‘Cause it's just as hard to accept that _anyone_ wants me…” Michael pauses and looks down as his hands, playing with the hem of the sheet. “But I’ve been working on my shit. And you’ve been there for me. And…” he gulps noticeably, and turns to look Alex in the eyes. “I’m tryin’ to say that… what really hurts these days… is not being with the person I love.”

Alex stares back at him, wide eyed, more tears starting to flow.

“You know I mean _you_ , right?” Michael hurries to say.

“I know,” Alex croaks out, and wipes at his eyes. 

"I'm sorry,” Michael says tenderly, “You're grieving, and I didn’t mean to make this about us. I just thought you should know before we-- But I just want to be here for you. Nothing else matters, okay?”

Alex nods, beginning to inch his face slowly closer to Michael’s.

“Yeah?” Michael whispers.

“Yeah,” Alex says, before kissing him, hard and soft, tasting of tears and love.

It doesn’t last long for how badly Alex starts to shake. He feels like he's torn in two - his heart soaring, but at the same time weighed down by loss, it stretches and _aches_ in a way he’s never known.

"I know, I know, it's too much, I'm sorry," Michael murmurs into Alex’s hair when Alex can do nothing but sag down Michael’s body in surrender to grief, resting his head on Michael’s chest, before Michael next coaxes Alex to lay his head in a pillow in his lap.

Michael holds him and strokes his hair, his arm, his back - nattering about a customer’s car with a mysterious problem he’s trying to solve - until no more tears come, and Alex’s breathing has calmed. 

“Do you want me to keep talking? Or do you want to talk? Or...?” Michael asks. 

“Luke liked to talk,” Alex whispers, then, a little louder, “And he could get you to spill your guts to him without lifting a finger. It was a gift.”

“Luke? Is that…?”

“Yeah.”

"Luke," Michael repeats.

> “Never thought I’d say it but I actually miss Calhoun.”
> 
> “He’s only out at meetings four days, right?”
> 
> “Three! Jesus, Dale, don’t extend our misery.”
> 
> “Seriously. I mean, we knew his rep, but, _fuck_ , is Jesse Manes the biggest hard-ass you’ve ever met or what?”
> 
> “Nah, I think he’s just a mean son-of-a-bitch,” Luke pipes up, “He gives me the creeps. Hiding behind the rules so he can-- Ow!”
> 
> Dale had kicked Luke in the shin under the table as Alex had walked by to shut him up, but Alex had heard everything, and Luke knows it.
> 
> ~~~~~
> 
> “Hey, man, uh, what I said about your d-- Master Sargent Manes, earlier, I was just blowing off steam. He worked us really hard today. I mean, you know that, obviously," Luke laughs awkwardly, "Six extra laps just for you - guess that's his version of ‘special treatment’?”
> 
> “Yeah, it is," Alex confirms, trying his best to sound disinterested, but feeling drawn in to a sense of safety in this other young man, who seemed to have - in just a single day - recognized his father for what he is, even if Luke is lamely trying to walk it back now.
> 
> "I need to learn not to run my mouth about my superiors," Luke admits. 
> 
> "You do. But you're right about him. He's... not a good guy. Back home, my 'special treatment' involved beatings. So..." Alex sucks in a breath and trails off.
> 
> Luke's face drops. “Shit, Alex, I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
> 
> “No one here does," Alex gulps as it dawns on him, "I--I don’t know why I told you. I shouldn't--”
> 
> “Don't worry about it," Luke waves him off, "You’ve probably noticed that I never stop talking... but despite that, I _can_ keep a secret, if you want it kept.”
> 
> “Thanks,” Alex says uneasily. 
> 
> “Hey, this unit? We’ve got to have each others’ backs,” Luke says, tone serious and reassuring, “And now I’ll have yours while you have to put up with the bastard the next two days.”
> 
> It's nice, Alex thinks, but also worrying. From what Alex has seen of Luke, he's loyal to a fault - the type to endanger himself for his friends. _Are they friends now?_ Alex doesn’t know, but he shudders to think of his last hero who stood between him and his father.
> 
> “Don't... do anything stupid for me," Alex says, which seems like an unnecessary plea to make to a person he’s only known a few weeks, but with Luke, he honestly isn’t sure. 
> 
> Luke huffs a laugh, "I see you're a good judge of character, too."

“He sounds like a good guy,” Michael says fondly, “And my favourite kind of stupid.”

“He is-- was,” Alex says into the pillow. “He kept me sane out there a lot of the time. Kept me alive sometimes. Him... and you.”

“Me?”

> “Who do you need to get home to?” a tired, ragged voice asks from the doorway.
> 
> “Huh?” Alex says, turning around from the wall of computer screens in front of him to face the door, to find Luke standing there. “Luke… You’re out of debrief? Is Barnes--?”
> 
> “He’s going to live. They flew him out for more treatment,” Luke says flatly.
> 
> Alex breathes a sigh of relief. “That’s great. He’s lucky you were there. You probably saved--”
> 
> “Don’t,” Luke cuts him off, “I was hopeless,” he says, wearily slumping against the door frame. 
> 
> “That’s not true,” Alex says, softly but surely.
> 
> “I was _literally_ holding the guy together with my hands, Alex. And I didn’t know what to say to him! He was giving up and all I could offer him were words and I had none! For the first time in my life I didn’t have anything to say. I just… froze.” Luke’s voice is filled with despair and uncertainty. “I had no idea what he needed to hear - what would get him through. I know what I’d need to hear, you know?” 
> 
> “You were scared, that’s all,” Alex says calmly, “But you were there for him, and he made it. That’s all that--”
> 
> “N-no. I ramble when I’m scared. This was different,” Luke says, eyes gone a little wild. 
> 
> “Okay, okay, you’re right,” Alex agrees with him, only because he recognizes Luke is struggling for the comfort of control, to assure himself he won’t feel like that again, that this is a problem that can be solved with a little pro-activity. 
> 
> “Then tell me,” Luke says, voice a little pleading.
> 
> “Tell you what?” Alex asks, in his concern over Luke, forgetting the start of their conversation.
> 
> “If things get real bad, if-- if you’re down - who can I throw in your face to get you up? ‘Cause it sure as hell ain’t your dad or your brothers or--” 
> 
> “There’s no one waiting for me,” Alex cuts in sharply. 
> 
> “That wasn’t the question,” Luke says quietly, looking unsettlingly desperate. 
> 
> Alex shakes his head, thinking that though Luke has chosen him in this moment, it really isn’t about him.
> 
> “Please? I need you to give me something, Alex. Because I can’t do that again. I can’t--” Luke doesn’t finish, letting out a sudden sob and starting to cry. 
> 
> Alex thinks for a second that Luke is going to run, so Alex won’t see him like this, but instead, Luke steps into the room, so _only_ Alex will see. 
> 
> With impressive restraint, Luke contains himself to a few sniffly, shaky, small gasps, before he swallows the rest down, wipes his hands over his face, and looks rather presentable again.
> 
> “Sorry,” Luke says, his voice remarkably steady. 
> 
> “Don’t apologize,” Alex says gently. 
> 
> Luke lets out a quick breath, which seems to make him instantly more alert, like he’s finally getting the oxygen he needs. “I should go. Talk to the others. I’m sure Holland has filled them in by now but… I guess they’ll want to hear the whole story from me...” He doesn’t sound thrilled about it. 
> 
> “Yeah, okay,” Alex gives him a small, encouraging smile. “But Luke…” Alex starts, feeling he needs to say _something_ before unleashing Luke on the general population. "Uh, I think you’re freaked out right now and not thinking straight...” Alex huffs out a nervous laugh at his poor, or perfect, choice of phrasing.
> 
> “Huh?” 
> 
> "Just... when you’re out there, asking everyone personal questions? Be mindful that there are… laws…"
> 
> Luke looks a little puzzled. “I’m not askin’ _everyone_. I’m asking _you_ ,” he says emphatically. 
> 
> “Oh,” Alex says, his mouth opening and closing around the word several times, but no sound comes out. He considers Luke one of his closest friends, but after over a year, he’s still not sure to what degree Luke feels the same. Luke is friends with everyone - the type of person who makes everyone feel special.
> 
> “Come on, Alex, I thought we had something here. I thought we were friends,” Luke jokes, but there is some underlying hurt to it that tells Alex the strength of their bond may very well be felt in both directions. 
> 
> Alex sighs, for he’s made a decision, and it might be a dumb one. “I never answered your question,” he says pointedly.
> 
> “I noticed...” Luke shrugs, then adds sheepishly, “...a little too late, mind you...” He smiles reassuringly, “You’re right, I’m a little out of it and I wasn’t thinking. Don’t worry about it, okay?” 
> 
> “But you still want to be friends?” Alex asks slowly. He’s much more nervous than he wants to be. 
> 
> “Yes, Alex, I still want to be your friend,” Luke says, chuckling warmly. But when Alex manages only a shy grin back, Luke’s smile fades. “I’m sorry you have to ask that.”
> 
> “Yeah, me too.”
> 
> Without missing a beat, Luke nods towards the cot in the corner of the computer lab, one where Alex often drifts off, too tired to make it to his own bunk. “Friends let friends crash on their cots, right?”
> 
> “Right.”
> 
> Luke walks across the small space, curls up on the cot, and closes his eyes immediately. His breathing is instantly steady, like he could be asleep already.
> 
> “His name is Michael. Michael Guerin,” Alex blurts out towards Luke’s still form. “He’s the person I need to get home for. Or at least I want to, one of these days. Even though I’m sure he didn’t stick around Roswell, not with his brains. And he might hate me. Probably. But I think-- I think it would hurt him if I didn’t come back. As much as I hurt him already, I just can't-- I don’t know. It’s complicated.” 
> 
> Luke’s eyes flutter open, and a large, soft grin spreads across his face. “All I needed was a name, soldier,” he says. 
> 
> Alex bites his lip at the regret that he’s just exposed Michael. But he needed Luke to know about him. He didn’t know how much he needed it. 
> 
> "You can say his name to me and only me, okay? And only in an emergency. And never to my father. Never. No matter what," Alex says sternly, trying to protect Michael as best he can.
> 
> Luke curses under his breath. Alex knows it’s him putting the pieces together. 
> 
> “Alex--” Luke says, tone strained, starting to prop himself upright on the bed. 
> 
> “Look, I don’t-- I gave you an answer. Now, go to sleep,” Alex orders. His authoritative tone has gotten much more convincing lately. 
> 
> “Okay, okay,” Luke surrenders, sinking back down to the bed. "Thank you for trusting me."
> 
> Luke falls asleep not a minute later, with the name of Michael Guerin on his lips.

"Did he ever have to use it? My name?” Michael asks gently. 

“No. He wasn’t around for my leg. First tour only.”

“Oh, right, you said that.” Michael finds it hurts to hear Luke hadn’t been there for Alex when he’d gotten injured. In the few minutes since learning of Luke’s existence, Michael had found a lot of comfort in the idea that he had been around when Alex needed someone.

“But even so, **it scares me to think what might've happened to me if I'd gone to war and didn't have you to come home to**. I didn’t want to die out there, and I wanted to be there for my team - that was motivation enough most days. But it helped to have you to think of, that extra push when things got really hard, when it was terrifying to move forward even though death was at our backs.”

It makes Michael’s heart pound to think of Alex in danger. 

“ **Maria would've been fine without me.** ” Alex is pleased at the lack of sting when he says her name - of course, it helps that Michael is currently in _his_ bed. “ **And Liz had long since forgotten about me for the time being.** My other friends, they’d moved on, or joined up too. And **my dad…** my brothers… well, you know. My mom…" he sighs, " **But...** **_you_** **. Oh, you. I couldn't let you go through that.** Maybe it was presumptuous of me to think you'd even care, with how we’d left things, and how we left things every time I’d come back to town... but, I knew how you felt, because I felt the same."

Michael can't even bring himself to consider the possibility that Alex might not have made it back to him.

"I never should have left you.”

Michael shakes his head, “I don’t think we can afford to live with those kind of regrets. We have to move on.”

Alex nods, giving Michael’s thigh an encouraging squeeze.

> “I don't know... There's not much to tell. At seventeen I just wanted to make music… but then… things changed, and I wanted to enlist. So I did.”
> 
> “Was _not_ enlisting really an option, with your family?” Luke asks.
> 
> “Probably not,” Alex admits. “Maybe I tell myself I wanted it so I can feel like I control my own life but… really, I _wanted_ to win battles. I _needed_ to. That much I do know. Still, somehow, I didn’t expect to actually like it?” He pauses to think, “But winning feels good. And I actually like going to work.”
> 
> “That’s because you get to hang out with me,” Luke jokes, “I mean, this six hour duty watch with me is a dream!”
> 
> Alex rolls his eyes behind his binoculars. Luke seems to sense it.
> 
> “Sorry,” Luke turns serious, “I know what you mean. You wonder what kind of person it makes you. I wonder that too, about myself. So does everyone else here whose opened up to me at all.”
> 
> “It’s easy to do that with you,” Alex says, putting down his binoculars, turning to Luke, and smiling sadly at him.
> 
> "I don’t know why. Seeing how I do ninety-nine percent of the talking around here,” Luke laughs, but behind it Alex can see he’s trying to read him. 
> 
> “Don’t ever change,” Alex says as brightly as he can while Luke continues to do that thing where it feels like he’s staring into your soul.
> 
> Luke sighs. “Already have. Since I got here.”
> 
> “Not too much.”
> 
> “You neither,” Luke says.
> 
> “I hope not.”
> 
> “No matter how much it changes you... You're nothing like your father. And you never will be. You gotta know that much Alex."
> 
> “I told you not to do that,” Alex frowns at him.
> 
> “What?”
> 
> “Read my mind.”

“I always imagined you hating your job, and that Jesse made you go. It made me feel sick to think about you out there, not only in danger, but also miserable,” Michael admits.

“I’d told you before, probably every time I was back in town. Always part of the same fight,” Alex says softly, making clear it’s not a fight they’re having again. 

“I thought you were lying to me. Or to yourself,” Michael says.

“Maybe I was… Maybe I am. But honestly I had a pretty normal life those years. For a soldier anyways.” 

Alex pauses for a long time. Michael waits, feeling Alex tense against him.

“I hate that all these stories involve my father. He’s hurt everyone I care about,” Alex says, teeth gritting in anger. 

“Alex--”

“When I lost my leg, Luke came to visit me in the hospital once.”

> “Hey you,” Luke says when Alex’s eyes flutter open.
> 
> “Luke, what are you doing here? How did you get leave to--”
> 
> “Don’t worry about it. Just be happy to see me,” he smiles, and takes Alex’s hand. 
> 
> “I am.” Alex squeezes Luke’s hand and then releases it. “It’s really good to see you.”
> 
> Luke’s hand next finds its way to Alex’s hair, thumb brushing over his forehead, examining the healing gash.
> 
> “If I have to hear one more person _helpfully_ tell me ‘chicks dig scars’, I’m going to lose it,” Alex says.
> 
> “I can tell you men will too, but that hardly elevates the usefulness of the statement.”
> 
> “You get it,” Alex says.
> 
> “How are you doing?” Luke asks. 
> 
> “I’m fine.”
> 
> “You don’t have to be fine, you know that, right?” Luke urges, “Promise me you’ll get help if you need it. I don’t know when I’ll have a chance to come by and kick your ass again.”
> 
> "I promise."
> 
> Alex looks up to see his father peering through the small window in the door. 

“That was the last time I saw Luke. I think drunk texting you last night was me keeping that promise I made to him.”

“I’m glad you did,” Michael says.

Alex doesn’t seem to hear him, clearing his throat, and continuing. “The very next day, Luke got assigned to a special task force. He was perfect for it, probably his dream job, but it’s a dangerous one, and very secretive. And it should've been five years down the line for him.” Alex huffs out a shaky breath. “I think my father pulled strings to get him on that unit... just to take Luke away from me. Probably thought we were fucking after what he saw. Which is dumb because by that point Luke had a wife and a kid-- Oh god, Michael. His family."

Michael leans down to kiss Alex’s temple, doing his best to keep a lid on his own rage for Jesse Manes as he feels it surge in Alex.

“I hate him so much,” Alex blasts out, as hot, angry tears run down his face. He hates that he hates his father, because hate is what his father carries in his heart. Hate is his father’s defining characteristic. 

Michael seems to read his mind, “Hey, hey. Even after Caulfield, when I said it kinda hurt to look at you… it wasn’t because I blamed you or saw Jesse in you. Luke was right, you’re _nothing_ like Jesse.”

Alex takes a deep breath in, and then out, consciously expelling thoughts of his father from his mind. “But you’re a lot like Luke.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“I think that’s a compliment, but you’ll have to tell me a little more about him before I’m sure,” Michael teases. 

“It hurts,” Alex says quietly. 

“I know,” Michael says softly, “But come on, you two must have gotten up to some fun. Luke must have talked himself into trouble sometimes.”

Alex squeezes his eyes shut. More tears fall as he searches his memories of Luke. They flit by, stirring with every stroke of Michael’s hand in his hair, too fast. 

Alex reaches for Michael’s hand then, bringing his fingers to his lips instead, placing a kiss to them, holding them still while he thinks for a few moments. 

“Tell me _that_ story,” Michael says, when he feels Alex’s lips twitch against his fingers as though wanting to smile.

“What?”

“You know,” Michael drawls encouragingly.

“It’s silly,” Alex says, a laugh already bubbling to the surface.

“I’ll love it.”

“Okay, okay,” Alex agrees, “So, this one time…”


End file.
